


the second hand of fate ticks closer home

by theexistentiallyqueer



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Major Spoilers, endgame spoilers, persona 5 royal spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 15:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21284156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theexistentiallyqueer/pseuds/theexistentiallyqueer
Summary: “Hey,” Akira says, catching Akechi by the sleeve of his jacket before he can leave. “Stay for a bit.”He doesn’t look to see if Akechi stays; he can hear that Akechi stays, because the door doesn’t open and the bell doesn’t ring. Akira goes behind the bar to grab a canister off the shelves on the wall and make them both coffee. It’s comforting to not have to think about what he’s doing, to let his body move on autopilot. He’s thinking too much as it is. He’s trying not to think. Every time he realizes he’s not thinking, his brain kicks back up again.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 37
Kudos: 233





	the second hand of fate ticks closer home

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILER WARNINGS FOR PERSONA 5 ROYAL. _Do not read_ if you don't want to be spoiled for the end game.

“Hey,” Akira says, catching Akechi by the sleeve of his jacket before he can leave. “Stay for a bit.”

He doesn’t look to see if Akechi stays; he can hear that Akechi stays, because the door doesn’t open and the bell doesn’t ring. Akira goes behind the bar to grab a canister off the shelves on the wall and make them both coffee. It’s comforting to not have to think about what he’s doing, to let his body move on autopilot. He’s thinking too much as it is. He’s trying not to think. Every time he realizes he’s not thinking, his brain kicks back up again.

Tomorrow they’ll fight Maruki, and probably whoever or whatever’s behind him too. Tomorrow they’ll remove the distortion and the Metaverse will be gone for good, and Akechi with it. He realizes his hands are shaking on the French press and has to let it go to press them flat on the counter and just breathe.

Akechi touches his hand. Akira looks up, startled.

Akechi isn’t wearing gloves. His eyes are dark and full of wildness and shadows, but clear regardless. A walking contradiction.

“Thank you,” he says. “For everything.”

There’s been an edge to his voice these past months, an edge that Akira likes because it’s more honest than the photogenic smiles and the peppy laughter. That edge isn’t there now, in those words that are too soft and too much because tonight they’ll go to bed and tomorrow they’ll wake up and by the end of the day Akechi will just be–gone.

Evaporated, like a spill. Passed, like a shadow.

Missed, more than anything.

Akira leans across the bar and kisses him. It’s clumsy and awkward, because he has to lean over the bar to do it, which is faster than walking around the bar but has its inconveniences. He doesn’t see how Akechi reacts, because Akira’s got his eyes closed for just a little while longer. What he feels, though, is Akechi’s warm bare hand curling around the back of Akira’s neck and pulling him in with bruising force, and Akechi kissing him back, just as hungry, just as insistent.

If it feels inevitable, it’s because it is. If stumbling upstairs to undo buttons and drop clothes to the floor and fall into Akira’s bed, into each other, feels inevitable–that’s because that is, too.

In the morning they’ll have to wake up. For tonight Akira can dream just a little while longer.

* * *

The train pulls out of the station and Akira watches out the window as the bright, vital city passes swiftly by. Soon enough the skyscrapers and crowded buildings will give way to the quiet sleepy countryside and a year that lasted a lifetime will be behind him. A year as full of tears as it was of laughter.

There’s been something sitting with disquiet in his chest, like the tight knot you get from running too hard and your lungs revolt against you. Something heavy and shadowed and painfully, intimately sad.

He made the right choice. He knows he did. He knows because they made it together, and Akechi agreed with him, and when they’re in alignment all the stars are in their right places, smiling down from the sky.

Doesn’t make it hurt any less.

He falls asleep eventually to the gentle rocking of the train, and he doesn’t hear the compartment door open. He does wake up to a touch on his shoulder, a hand he knows because it’s been there before and burned itself into his memory. Akira looks up to find eyes darker than blood, darker than cherries, darker than wine.

“Is this seat taken?” Akechi’s mouth is a scythe, a brutal sharp-edged curve made for cutting things. 

Akira can barely hear him over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. That heavy thing beneath his heart is lightening, lightening, soaring--flying high.

It’s a journey, and there are miles ahead of them before they have to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while processing my feelings about the game today and anyway I have. I have a lot of them. The feelings, they're spilling everywhere.
> 
> I can't believe Atlus accidentally made this ship canon.


End file.
